Perennialists and Digressers All,
First, and foremost, if you didn’t know, David Bentley Hart was kind enough to spend two hours chatting with me on Friday; you can see it here:
The conversation that I pitched to Hart was on “Eschatological Horizons,” by which I meant the contingent steps or paths towards the eternal dynamism of God’s in-filling all things and the reconciliation of all things to God. Hart has written at great length on this final or ultimate horizon of eschatology in That All Shall Be Saved, which, if you haven’t read it, you certainly should.
I won’t spoil the conversation by simply recounting it, which, true to the name of this blog & channel, traversed all the important things, from the economic realities of first century Galilee to the infinity of possible worlds to Sun Wukong and Japanese Spider-Man. I may elect at some future point to provide a transcript of it, if I find myself with the time and the patience. But I did want to highlight just a few points of interest:
On the glorification of Jesus. Hart mentions that he is working on a second edition of his New Testament translation, where he plans to render the line in Philippians 2:6 about the preexistent Christ Jesus being ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ as “in the form of a god” rather than “in the form of God.” I didn’t think to ask if Hart had arrived at that observation through interaction with folks like Paula Fredriksen, who have argued that (e.g., in Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle), but it is worth pointing out that while virtually all scholars think Paul had a divine Christology, there is not a small bit of warfare over this particular phrase in the Philippians Christ hymn. Read directly, Paul seems to say in that hymn precisely what Hart and I say that he does: Christ is glorified as YHWH, the Kyrios, only in his post-crucifixion exaltation. (Fredriksen would dissent here, but I think it obvious that Paul takes Jesus to be the principal manifestation and agent of YHWH.) The reason this is so contentious is that it seems to cut against a Nicene theology of the Trinity, in which Jesus Christ is homoousios and coeternal with the Father. But there is a legitimate path from Paul’s exaltation or glorification Christology to Nicene Christology, if one has the patience to walk it, and we try to trace that out.
On the delay of the parousia. Early on in the conversation, Hart and I dialogue on the “coming” of Jesus. Contemporary biblical scholars and theologians have a problem with New Testament literature, and that problem is the delay of the parousia. For a good number of scholars who work on Christian Origins, regardless of their faith identity, the problem can be described in this way: the first Jesus followers were Jewish apocalypticists who came to identify him as mashiach or christos, messiah; they continued to follow and believe in Jesus after his crucifixion on the basis of the experience of his resurrection and the promise of his future return; despite the fact that they almost all speak about that return happening very soon, Jesus evidently did not return in the fullness of glory promised. This leads to the distinctively theological problem for contemporary believers who take biblical scholarship seriously, which is how to square the promise of Jesus’ coming with its manifest unfulfillment. This problem is surely evident to the Synoptic Evangelists, who try to connect the logia of Jesus about the coming of the Son of Man to the events of 70 AD, and to John, who immanentizes the eschaton. In early Christianity, no universal consensus on this question existed, as represented by the expectation of a historical parousia in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haeresos and the eschatology of cosmic ascent sans chiliasm in Origen’s De Principiis. Probably the most serious attempt to deal with this problem honestly in print, at least of which I’m aware, is that by Christopher Hays, Brandon Gallaher, Julia Konstantinovsky, Richard Ounsworth, and C.A. Strine, When the Son of Man Didn’t Come: A Constructive Proposal on the Delay of the Parousia. The argument of that book is that because ancient prophecy is dynamic and collaborative, not purely prognosticative, it was not per se a strike against the prophetic authenticity of Jesus or the apostles that the parousia was delayed: other interpretations, used in late New Testament and early patristic literature, exist to the effect of suggesting that the parousia has been delayed to enable further repentance, and that metaphysically, God enjoys the option of realizing the eschaton in the best possible way as he sees fit. In a sense, I see this argument as wrapping around back to Hart’s work on universalism, insofar as this thesis provides a model for understanding the parousia’s delay that inevitably means God will delay the eschaton until all rational beings welcome it. But I am also, simultaneously, more sympathetic at this point to Origen’s understanding of the parousia, as Hart nods to it in the interview, than I ever have been.
On rebirth. I ask Hart about rebirth, and we dialogue on different notions of samsara and liberation in South and East Asian traditions, with not a small amount of shade thrown at Theravada in favor of Mahayana. (Apologies to a Theravada scholar who has my undying appreciation and respect.)
On contingent hopes. Hart does end on what Christians can concretely hope and work toward, which is nothing less than to actually obey Jesus, as well as several more of his own publications.
I had a ton of fun doing this; I hope to do this again with Hart; and I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you liked this, I do have more of them lined up with others as well.
Εἰρήνη πᾶσι,
David
Yes, this conversation was so rich and delightful! You two are a fantastic combo. Much that you talked about has got me reflecting about several things myself:
https://copiousflowers.com/2021/07/10/holy-fooldom-versus-the-modern-nation-state-all-of-human-history-in-the-eyes-of-david-bentley-hart/
Great conversation, David! Would love for you to continue them. I think you’ve a knack as a keen interviewer.